Update and D I Y/ Bricolage.

If you live in in an old property in France and are not comfortably off, it is indispensable to do some of your own DIY work. Painting and decoration spring to mind but there are many other tasks that the skilled, or just poverty-stricken householder tries to undertake with more or less success.
  In France, DIY is known as bricolage, and there is a considerable industry dedicated to supplying the needs of the bricoleur. The term is not exactly complimentary, in fact. The phrase `Quest-ce-que tu bricole la?` translates as `What are you mucking about with now?` or even less polite words... Nevertheless, the rural French have always done their own repairs and created their own solutions to problems using local materials, anything rather than spend hard-earned money.
  For example, look at the `machine` on the right. The problem--to sharpen blades, either of knives or garden implements; the solution was to adapt an old bicycle wheel, a belt made of braided string, a pulley made of an old cotton-reel and a small grind-stone borrowed from goodness-knows where. The result is a rotary grinder needing no electricity, just a `volunteer` to turn the handle unless you are not ambidextrous. And if you don`t have a child of the correct age to do that, no doubt a DIY solution exists for that, too!
  A further example I found when cutting up scrap wood for the stove. This broken `machine` was thrown in the back of one of our batiments. It consists of a piece of plank provided with four legs, only one of which remains. This forms a stool ,on which the user sits astride. With his foot he can press a lever under the stool which connects to a wooden mechanism formed most ingeniously from a single piece of right- angled wood. This action closes a sort of vise to hold the piece of wood that the operator is shaping. A sort of prehistoric Black and Decker Workmate? I don`t know what it was used for, possibly shaping wooden wheel- spokes?
   These reflections were prompted by Kim`s laptop, which illustrates perfectly the bricolage which we continue in the same tradition as the rural French geniuses who produced the machines above. The laptop has a checkered history. It belonged to Alyson, who was in the habit of using it while sitting on the floor. Her son Aaron, galloping clumsily by, dealt it a kick which detached the screen from the keyboard, breaking the hinge. The insurers found it beyond repair and replaced it with a new one and Al gave the pieces to me to play with. I succeeded in re-attaching the lid stealing screws from elsewhere in the machine and sort of spreading them about.. Somewhat to my surprise the laptop worked, though the hinge will never be the same. Kim, who is even less fastidious than me in DIY matters has recently strengthened the hinge with copious use of black sticky tape... Unfortunately, an attempt to `clean` the keyboard with a cup of coffee two days ago,seemed to have dealt this Lazarus-like object the long-overdue coup-de-grace. Despite prompt turning upside-down and applications of kitchen towel, an ominous warning light appeared and the thing quit. Advise from Ade, our local expert to take out the battery and dry for twenty-four hours didn`t seem to work at first, but to Kim`s delight, the laptop has gradually recovered and now seems to be working as before! Another triumph of bricolage!!

   Bye for now, going to bricoler a cup of coffee.